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Kanye Booed
E! Online
The
Bonnaroo boobirds were out in full force for
Kanye West this
weekend.
The
Grammy winner
walked onto the festival stage nearly two hours past his scheduled
2:45 a.m. performance time Sunday morning and was greeted by
bleary-eyed fans' chorus of boos and chants of "Kanye sucks."
West was originally set to kick
things off at 8:15 p.m., but because he wanted to make the most of
his Glow-in-the-Dark Tour's lighting show, the hip-hopster's camp
asked to push back the gig to 2:45 a.m. following
Pearl Jam's
show.
However, the Seattle grunge rockers'
gig lasted an hour longer than planned, with
Eddie Vedder
and bandmates not wrapping until 1:15 a.m. Then there was an
extended break while Pearl Jam's roadies disassembled the band's
stage and West's crew set up his own elaborate backdrop, a
glow-in-the-dark spaceship along with undulating black platform and
raised video screen.
Organizers posted a message via
Jumbotron that the "Can't Tell Me Nothing" rapper wouldn't be taking
the stage until 3:15 a.m., then 3:30. When 4:15 a.m. rolled around
and still no West, the antsy crowd began hurling
glow sticks at
the stage and screaming anti-West sentiments. Bonnaroo officials
didn't help the matter, not informing festivalgoers why the
changeover was taking so long.
West finally made his entrace at
4:30 a.m., but by then, many exhausted attendees had had enough and
returned to their tents.
Apparently, they didn't miss too
much.
Judging by online reviews, West's
performance didn't stand out from the 150 acts performing at the
four-day musical campout. In fact, it was a yawner.
"He was two hours late, cut his
show short, didn't once acknowlegde the crowd that waited two hours
on an already late show, not even a wave goodbye...I'm no longer a
Kanye fan, huge disappointment," one fan wrote at the music blog
Stereogum.com.
"It's not the stage hands' fault;
that stage was set up for well over an hour before Kanye decided to
grace us with his presence," wrote another attendee on
VillageVoice.com.
"The next time he holds that finger up and proclaims himself as #1,
I hope someone tells him what he can do with that finger."
Per festival reports, West failed
to even acknowledge his tardiness.
The bad vibes carried over to
Sunday's daytime slate, when during his set pedal-steel guitar
virtuoso Robert Randolph groused about West's behavior, prompting
fans to reprise the "Kanye sucks" chant.
There was no immediate comment from
the West camp.
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